Tuesday, September 30, 2014

An interesting link: Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation with David and Ben Crystal

NOTE: The questions for Acts 1 and 2 are posted below.

This is a ten-minute video that might be of interest to the class: it discusses the original pronunciation of Shakespeare vs. the commonly-accepted one we use today.  Like Chaucer, Shakespeare was writing in a time of great linguistic fluctuation, so many words had not assumed their definitive pronunciations.  What does it matter?  Well, sometimes rhymes work in Original Pronunciation that don't work in our Common Pronunciation.  Also, puns can sometimes be lost, as well as the meanings of an entire line or passage.  Watch the link below to learn more...


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